Wheeled vehicles used by military forces commonly travel off-road with heavy loads at high speed. Although vehicles travelling under these conditions experience relatively frequent tire punctures or ruptures, it is desirable to carry a minimum of spare tires, since space and weight in these vehicles is at a premium. It is thus advantageous to make repairs on the tires quickly, under field conditions, and in a way that permits the tire to perform under extreme conditions. Our invention will allows the effect of such repairs. Our invention is also a means to repair almost any inflatable object or even items such as boat hulls, water tanks or pipes.
Our device has an apertured plate placed on the item's outer surface at a rupture, and has an elongate member extending through the aperture into the item. The device's butterfly element is threaded to the elongate member and pushed inside the item. Wing-like clamping members of the butterfly element swing away from the elongate member so that engagement surfaces of the clamping members face the item's ruptured zone. On the engagement surfaces is a material comprised of a curable adhesive resin separated from a setting agent therefor wherein the resin, its setting agent, or both are in capsules such as hollow glass spheres. Turning the elongate member draws the clamping members to the item's inner surface so that the damaged portion of the wall or skin of the item is clamped between the clamping elements and the plate. The mechanical clamping action is reinforced by the adhesive action of the resin which sets when the clamping action breaks the capsules at the clamping members' engagement surfaces. Our device also has means to prevent pressurized air or other pressurized fluid from escaping the repaired item along the elongate member. Such means can be placed at the aperture in the plate, on the butterfly element, or at both locations. Our device optionally has more than two clamping members on the butterfly element, and the butterfly element can have means both to limit the swing of the clamping elements and reinforce the clamping members once they have reached the limit of that swing.